Mugen’s 1st Birthday

Wow… it’s been a whole year.

As I write this and look down at my feet, I see a 70 pound hunka chocolate love that was minutes ago running around my house at top speed after a green squeaky ball that makes a noise that sounds so distinctive that it has become known as “The Farty Ball”. There are two such balls in my house, both will send my chocolate chunk into a dive bombing frenzy the second they appear in the hands of a human.

His happiness over these kinds of things… makes my days worth waking up to.

The last year has been hard for us as a family, but I want to celebrate today as the first birthday of my best friend and confidant. Mugen always has a hug for me when I need it, he even knows that when I go to sit down in a couple of spots, I sit there because I’m feeling sad or bored and he will come join me, plant his butt next to my hip and lay his head on my shoulder and wait for my arms to wrap around him.

He also seems to have a knack for acting like a complete idiot when I really need to laugh and when that doesn’t work, he grabs one of my bras and runs around the house with it in his mouth. I swear to God that when I finally get it from him, he’s laughing his butt off in a way that only a puppy can.

He has been the best puppy a girl could ever ask for.

I cannot tell you how much he is loved. He came to us at a time when I was raw and bleeding and he stitched me back up with the wonder of watching him sleep on the floor. He ranks pretty high up there on the list of best things that have ever happened to me. There are not enough words to describe what he means to me and to my family.

His wild puppy antics have made the difference some days, between us living and just existing. He really does THAT much for us. He is there to greet my children as they come in the door from school every day and he happily does a bounce and a wiggle, in typical Lab fashion, while trying to eat their clothes so that he can drag them down to his level and lick their faces. He greets my husband with the same exuberance. Me, well, he won’t pull that crap on me. He waits for me to get to the kitchen counter and set my stuff down first.

We’re still cooking him. But… man are we cooking with gas. Mugen is in the process of earning his CGC and while he failed the first test, the trainers have told me that I have every single right to be proud of the progress we’ve made. It is rare that they have a Lab in their classes that is as young as Mugen is that can actually pass Advanced Home Companion. He is ready to move into Rally and Obedience competition classes. He has been an exceptional puppy.

And today, he graduates from puppyhood to become, my exceptional dog.

Happy Birthday Mugen, my gemini compadre!

Oh no! Not… DIRT!!!

So… the fence is in. Hubby and I are very pleased with it. We have to decide what color to stain it so that it doesn’t clash with our neighbor’s lovely chocolate brown fence.

I have been so excited. I should have taken Lucy and Mugen out on lead… but I didn’t. I was too excited. I opened the back door and they took off like shots. Lucy, of course, headed straight to the areas of the yard that she knew would take her out of the yard and none of them worked. She was confused by this… but then she started running around all over the place and had such a huge doggie smile. I wish that I could have found my camera. It was wonderful to see her being a dog.

Mugen did much the same, but he found STUFF in the yard. Stuff that had been lost when my children were very, very small. He found a gun holster that once belonged to my son. It went to some tacky guns that I banished from the house because Reilly growled whenever he saw them. I banned them from our house when my son was 8 years old… that was 9 years ago… how they managed to stay in our yard, I do not know. Where Mugen found it, I do not know. All I know is, he found it… and he hunted it down and took off with it so the people could chase him and grab him and take it before he could swallow it whole.

The yard will be thoroughly cleaned, starting tomorrow. Many dump runs will be made.

The important thing though… is that I have discovered that my dogs have discovered something horrible.

Dirt.

I have lived in this house for 10 years. We adopted Reilly before we moved in. I had forgotten what it is like to have a dog that has free and easy access to stuff like… dirt.

You see Reilly… hated dirt. Reilly did not enjoy going outside in the rain and would hold is bladder if we opened a door on a rain shower. He was such a tidy, neat dog.

And then I looked around my yard and I saw Lucy digging in the dirt.. and Mugen EATING the dirt and I saw them getting dirty and I realized… that my house… is never going to be clean again.

And somehow… I am completely okay with that.

Pictures of the fence and the hooligans being hooligans in their new fenced yard will come tomorrow. I ran out of daylight today. I was too busy convincing Mugen that eating dirt was a bad thing.

The Morning Freak Out

I’m not sure why, but my entire family has been missing Reilly very hard this week. Yesterday, I dusted his commemorative dog bowl. His collar had dust on it and when I grabbed the leather lotion and a cloth… I just started crying. When my son came home, he said to me, without me having mentioned a word to him about my feelings, “Mom, I really miss Reilly today for some reason. I’ve been missing him all week.” My husband voiced similar feelings while cooking dinner and fending Mugen off of his pant leg. At one point, he bent down and put an arm around Mugen and said, “I’m used to there being a dog under foot, but you’re supposed to stay on the ground and sniff at the edge of the counter and then sit and wag your tail at me… and then I’m supposed to give you a piece of chicken when Mom’s not looking.”
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Dog Fart!

I’ve had to adjust the routine since Lucy came home. It’s been rough actually but any time you have to settle into a new routine, it’s hard. So I get up at 6 am. I have the daughter attempt to take Lucy out, which does not work, for some reason, Lucy will only do her business when I’m standing outside with her which I am totally okay with now that I’ve realized it, but my kids would take her out and would forget to tell me that she didn’t go. You can imagine what a fiasco this has been.

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Miss Lucy Girl

It started at the end of August. I hadn’t even thought of adopting a second dog yet. Mugen had been home for just under a month at that point, and I had no idea that anything this heart wrenching was going to happen. I was wrapped up in chocolate Lab puppy dreams and sweet puppy kisses.

I didn’t know anything at all.

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Death Wish

I know that not everyone wants to know this, but it is important to my story. See… I am PMS’ing this week. My PMS is brutal. My husband wants me to get on medication for it, except they can’t put me on medication for it (I have adverse reactions to birth control and all those warnings that they say women shouldn’t be or do when they’re on the pill… I do or am almost all of them).

This is Mugen’s second run-in with me on PMS.

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